Eurovision 2020 Australia Decides: Montaigne to represent us in Rotterdam
The Eurovision 2020 Australia Decides live show has just decided who will represent us in the singing competition and it wasn’t who everyone was expecting.
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Montaigne already has the perfect spot for her Eurovision: Australia Decides trophy.
“I can’t wait to put this on the top of my piano and claim dominance in my share house,” she joked.
Our 2020 Eurovision contestant was thrilled to win the backing of her peers to take out the highest jury vote and came in second with the public vote boosted by her Triple J-assisted fanbase to give her the unbeatable total.
The public vote pushed her over the top to 107.
Her entry song, Don’t Break Me, written just a few months ago to meet the deadline for the Australia Decides contest was undoubtedly the most contemporary pop song in the field.
She also stunned with her choreography for the song, which she said she prepared for with plenty of exercise, including her beloved football.
Montaigne has played competitive soccer since she was a child.
She has referred to Eurovision as the World Cup Of pop.
“Probably my fanbase and the Triple J squad; I think there was a hearty contingent supporting me and Didirri and Jaguar Jonze,” she said. “But I know through the years there were also a lot of people saying Montaigne would be perfect for Eurovision, a lot of responses about the song saying this was Kate Bush mixed with clown. That response got me excited about doing this because they got my eccentricity matches the Eurovision brand.”
Montaigne and the SBS delegation will now spend the next couple of months finessing the technical and creative elements of her performance to take to Rotterdam in May.
Casey Donovan won the public vote with 60 points to come second with her performance of Proud rewarded with one of the biggest ovations from more than 3500 fans in the Gold Coast convention and Exhibition Centre.
Amorosi was the front runner for her power pop song Lessons Of Love and dramatic staging to complement her epic voice.
The Shine singer began her song sprawled across the stage floor beside a car wreck but her power-lunged performance was far from a car crash.
The car wreck prop as a metaphor for the wreckage of a failed relationship may be a stretch but Amorosi commanded audience attention and dazzled the camera with her totally pro performance.
Amorosi’s over-the-top concept for the performance of her entry song also wowed the Australia Decides crowd at the non-televised jury show on the Gold Coast on Friday night.
“When I watched Kate Miller-Heidke last year, the whole artistry of what she did got me very, very excited,” Amorosi said.
“So that got me coming up with all these ideas, bigger and bigger ideas and no one said no.”
Dami Im dropped a bombshell after her performance when she threw her hat into the ring for the 2021 Australia Decides show for another shot at Eurovision.
Im has been our best performer at the contest, coming second in 2016 in Sweden with Sound of Silence.
Her unique take on what makes an expressive Eurovision moment featured captivating choreography which illustrated the lyrics and her idiosyncratic vocal stands out from the rest of the contenders.
Last year’s representative Kate Miller-Heidke opened the live decider show with her rendition of her song Zero Gravity which she sang last year.
Vying for the title, iOTA kicked off the event with his song Life.
He is this year’s Freddie Mercury.
The shiny blue suit, gold face-painted star of musical theatre and film brings a defiant rock camp to the Eurovision stage, flanked by gender-bending dancers soaring on high wires.
He has stated on the record he’s not really in it to win it and that nonchalance frees him up to do iOTA rather than a Eurovision version of him and he kicks off the show with a bang.
Jordan Ravi came on second, and is the pop heartthrob of the 2020 lineup, the acoustic guitar-slinging, mop of curls, smooth voiced charmer with Pushing Stars, co-written by last year’s contestants Tania Doko and George Sheppard.
His staging relies mostly on a stunning audiovisual display and he is the only artist to get up close to the audience with a run of front row handslaps.
But Ravi should have left the guitar on its stand because the song demands some frenetic strumming and it distracts both his vocal performance and the viewer.
Distinctive, electric and deliciously bonkers, the edgy indie pop performance of Jaguar Jonze would blow Eurovision minds.
She acted out her Rabbit Hole - about dealing with her childhood-induced PTSD - “trapped” by a yellow room, draped over a geometric box before pushing down the walls to reveal her band.
That frees her up to convulse around the stage with frenetic energy captured by jerky camera work.
One of the most creative productions of this year’s contest.
Jack Vidgen, the TV talent quest discovery, has been on the comeback trail over the past year and pours all the pain of his battle for acceptance into his gospel pop ballad I Am King I Am Queen.
But the stark, brownish staging, his overly rehearsed arm movements and some screechy top notes don’t scream Eurovision 2020 representative.
If you don’t get goosebumps when Casey Donovan lets fly with her golden tonsils in the final notes of Proud, you might want to check your pulse.
The song isn’t the greatest in this year’s contest - the lyrics are pop cliche pastiche and there’s no dramatic melodic lift - but put so much into a joyous, powerful delivery and looks stunning in that floor-length glittery black gown.
One of the most joyous moments of the non-televised Friday night show came when she glided on to the stage shining with crystals and dazzled the camera and the audience with her note perfect performance.
While there has been a significant fan campaign behind Donovan’s Eurovision campaign, the song doesn’t have the punch to put Australia into a winning position at Rotterdam.
SBS have gone proptastic with this year’s Australia Decides contest but you can’t unsee Dyson fan with the circle podium staging of Diana Rouvas’ Can We Make Heaven.
There’s no denying that voice but the song just doesn’t bring the Eurovision drama even as she valiantly attempts to make it soar.
Mitch Tambo’s production features the most beautiful of backdrops of this year’s contest, a kaleidoscopic, eye-popping explosion of colour.
Tambo’s mix of Gamilaraay and English in Together to symbolise unity, combined with movement influenced by traditional dance, makes an inspiring statement on the Eurovision stage. It may have had more impact if the song was entirely sung in language.
Other well-received performances at the jury show included Jonze’s Rabbit Hole and Tambo’s passionate indigenous language and dance rendition of Together.
The jury show was judged by a panel of five industry experts and their scores account for 50 per cent of the total with the public votes on Saturday to decide the winner.
Raw Stuff is the most beautiful, vulnerable ballad of this year’s contest.
The Triple J and festival fave Didirri sounds like Rufus Wainwright and looks like Joseph Gordon-Levitt and makes the audience well with emotion with his performance.
But unless you have seen the music video for the song, the marriage of his piano playing with the scenes from the shoot may be lost in translation.
The split screens were weird.
Originally published as Eurovision 2020 Australia Decides: Montaigne to represent us in Rotterdam